The timing of this outbreak seems especially convenient as finals week is approaching. After the realization that professors will have to excuse infected students from their exams, school officials grew suspicious. Thanks to an anonymous tip your Black Sheep staff received, it has been discovered MUMPS2K16 is not an unfortunate coincidence, but rather a calculated scheme to get out of finals.

We spoke with one of the first students to have received a mumps diagnosis. John Avery, Mizzou sophomore, explains, “When I first got the mumps I thought it was all over for me. I mean, my face was kind of fucked up even before this happened, so I figured I’d be spending another long winter just me and my Jergens. But then this past week girls started throwing themselves all over me. They say I have a bigger jaw line than Ron Perlman, and they can’t stop rubbing themselves all over it! It’s a huge confidence boost, I must really be rocking this mumps look!”

We spoke with one of the girls who was recently spotted with Avery, “Oh, John? Yeah, that guy’s disgusting, but I have a chem final I have no chance of passing so once I saw those chipmunk cheeks I knew it was my ticket out of finals. Yeah, I might be mentally scarred for the rest of my life after scraping my teeth across his glands, but it’ll all be worth it if it means I don’t have to retake this class again…”

Other business-minded students have started selling their disease to others. Randy Mancini told us more about his budding business, “It’s pretty simple, I suck on one of those koosh balls for ten minutes, zip it up in a plastic baggie and sell em’ for $50 in Speaker’s Circle. Guaranteed to get ya real mumpy or your money back! If ya need the hook-up, I’ll be there this weekend, just look for the kid with the wheely backpack. I got like 80 of these bad boys.”

While we don’t recommend contracting a disease in order to get out of finals, sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. But if you’re broke like us, you’re probably better off just hitting the bars and sharing drinks with as many people as you can. Hopefully infected students spend their winter breaks recovering and this outbreak doesn’t go on for mumps…